Stranded
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, AU. It was Christmas Eve, and Daryl really hated to see her have her Christmas ruined. Rated for language.


**AN: This is from a Tumblr prompt that wanted a specific line of dialogue and Caryl being stuck in the airport on Christmas Eve. I hope it's a nice little piece of light entertainment.**

**I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

**I hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think! **

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"Look what I found, Sweetheart," Daryl called out as he spotted his wife among the other waiting people near their gate.

Carol looked at him, and so did a half dozen other women, so Daryl simply smiled sheepishly at the other women and turned his attention to the one whose attention he was pleased to have. The other women didn't seem to mind too much that their husbands had not yet returned with their Christmas Eve treats—since Daryl was sure that was who they had mistaken him for.

Most of them buried their attention back in books, phones, word searches, or, in the case of a woman sitting not too far from them, the knitting of the longest scarf that Daryl had ever seen.

Daryl passed the tall cup of hot chocolate over to Carol and she reached for his, as well, to help free his hands. He let her have both and she rested them both on her thighs while she waited for him to sit. From under his arms, he produced the two bags he'd been carrying with the constant concern that he was moments away from dropping both of them. He peeked into the bags and smiled at her—ignoring entirely the fact that she looked like the world was ending in a matter of minutes—before he offered her one of the paper bags.

"That's that good hot chocolate," he said. "And I got you a honey bun 'cause you're my lil' honey bun."

Carol crinkled her nose at him and Daryl laughed to himself.

Such a simple gesture could absolutely make him feel like his heart literally throbbed with a reminder of how much he loved her. She was everything he'd ever wanted in a partner. She was everything he'd ever wanted, really, in the whole world.

"Would you rather be my cinnamon roll?" Daryl asked, offering out the other paper bag.

Carol broke and laughed to herself. Daryl welcomed the sound of her laughter—even if it wasn't long and too sincere—because she hadn't so much as smiled since they'd announced the delay, and possible cancellation, of their flight. Now they were stuck. They were several hours away from where they were going, and they were several hours away from where they were from. Daryl had offered to get them a room in a hotel to pass the night, but Carol refused to leave the gate in case they decided that the snow had let up enough to let them continue onward.

"Give me the cinnamon roll," Carol said. "We can split it, if you want," she added as a second thought when Daryl passed over the paper bag.

"I don't give a shit," Daryl said. "They both sweet—and ain't neither one sweet as my lil' gingerbread woman."

Carol snorted.

"I hate you," she offered, before she tore into her cinnamon roll. Daryl laughed to himself and settled into his seat next to her, relaxing as much as the uncomfortable airport chair allowed.

"I love you, too," he said.

"I love you," Carol said.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"I know," he said.

He did know. They'd been married for twenty-one years as soon as January twentieth rolled around. He had loved her since he'd met her. It had taken her a bit longer to fall entirely for him, though. Really, it had taken her a bit longer to trust him. He never held that against her. Her husband, before him, had abused her mercilessly, and she'd suffered a long time at his hands. Daryl had known that kind of cruelty in his childhood, so he understood the fear of others. He could really sympathize, too, with the fact that it must be terrifying to choose someone else to fill the shoes of the abuser you'd finally escaped.

For that reason, Daryl was extra careful to control his anger. They had more than one heated argument in twenty years, but Daryl had never once touched Carol while he was angry. He made a point not to touch her at all when he was angry—not in any way—so that he could never, not even accidentally, hurt her.

And, in return, she loved him with more passion and dedication than he ever could have even asked for. She loved him in a way that soothed his soul like honey on a sore throat.

She was his wife and his best friend—and he loved her more than words could really explain.

But she knew that. And he knew that she loved him, too, just the same way.

"You can have this," Carol said after what Daryl would hardly consider a reasonable bite or two of the cinnamon roll. "I don't want this."

She offered the paper bag back to him. He took it and put it to the side.

"You didn't eat no dinner," he said.

"I didn't want any," Carol said.

"So you said," Daryl said. "Drink your hot chocolate?"

Carol sipped it, but she was frowning at the chocolate.

Carol loved hot chocolate. He'd gotten her the biggest one because this was the good kind made at the place that made the candy bars that Carol liked so much. He'd asked the woman at the counter to tell him the best hot chocolate they had, and then he'd asked her to please mix it up extra good and special to cheer someone real important up because she really needed it.

"It's not good?" Daryl asked.

"It's fine," Carol said.

"Your mouth says fine," Daryl offered, "but your face don't agree."

"I'm just tired," Carol said.

Tired was a universal attempt to get out of talking about how she really felt. Daryl knew that by now. Twenty years, after all, was a lot of time to learn a person.

"Close your eyes. Here—lean on me. I'll hold you up. That's pretty nice Christmas music they're playin', right? Close your eyes and listen to it. Curl on up here against me."

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"It's fine," Carol said. "I'm fine, really, Daryl. Eat your food."

To humor him, she sipped at the hot chocolate even though she looked like he'd asked her to sit in the hard-little airport chair and drink molten lava until it hardened in her stomach and slowly killed her from painful internal wounds.

"Alright," Daryl said. "You're killin' me, now. Where's all your holiday spirit, Scrooge? I know this ain't the best way we could spend Christmas Eve, but it's not the worst way either."

Carol's frown intensified now that Daryl was drawing attention to the sadness that was threatening to draw all the air out of the entire airport.

"It's Sophia's first Christmas," Carol said. "And I'm going to miss it."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Sophia is thirty-two years old," Daryl offered.

Sophia was their only daughter. She was, technically, the biological child of Carol and her first husband. When she'd divorced the man, however, he'd given up his rights to Sophia and he'd left her entirely. Daryl had adopted Sophia the same year that he'd married Carol. For all intents and purposes, Sophia was his daughter.

Daryl and Carol had tried to have a child of their own. Something had gone wrong, though, and the little boy that they'd created together had left his mother's body—and the world—when she'd only held him inside her for a little over four months. He had drawn a few ragged breaths in her arms while she and Daryl had looked on helplessly. They never actually discussed their intention not to try again. After the funeral—private and attended only by their closest family members— and while they were still heavily mourning the devastating loss, Daryl had simply told Carol that he was getting a vasectomy and she'd told him that she thought that was for the best.

They discussed, even now, fostering or adopting, and the paperwork was actually in a folder on the kitchen bar at home. If Daryl had known they'd be stuck in an airport, he might have distracted the love of his life from her misery by filling it out and engaging her in daydreams about how they might help some unfortunate child to have the best Christmas it had ever had next year.

Because they'd never had any more children, and because of all that Carol had gone through while she'd been married to Sophia's biological father, she was fiercely protective of her daughter. Sophia had actually been the one to introduce the idea of fostering or adoption to Daryl with the hope that it might give Carol more to focus on.

It had been difficult when Sophia went to college and moved away.

It was even more difficult now that she'd married and settled down somewhere where they had to book a flight to see her.

Daryl reached his hand over and caught the hand that wasn't holding the paper cup of hot chocolate. He pulled Carol's hand over and kissed it.

"Sophia's thirty-two," he repeated. "She's gonna be OK if you don't get there 'til Christmas afternoon."

"It's her first Christmas," Carol said. "Cooking. Hosting us. I should be there to help her get ready."

"She's gonna be able to handle it," Daryl assured Carol.

Carol glanced at her watch and wiped at her eyes. She was trying to keep her tears back, but that might not last for long.

"We would've been there by now. Ryan would have picked us up already and we'd be back at their house right now," Carol said.

"We gonna get there as soon as we can," Daryl said.

"I'm supposed to be meeting my grandson right now," Carol said.

Daryl didn't want the cinnamon roll or the honey bun anymore. His stomach complained about both.

"Fuck it," he said. He stood up and packed the sweets in his carry-on bag. He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and held his hand out to Carol. "Come on, woman, let's go."

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"Outta this damned airport," Daryl said.

"I told you," Carol said, "that I don't want to leave. We're not going to a motel for the night and missing the flight."

"You damned right we aren't," Daryl said. "Get your bag, Carol Ann. I'm not askin' this time."

Carol furrowed her brow at him, but she picked up her bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder. It was very rare that Daryl told her what to do and was unwilling to compromise. She wasn't going to fight with him—not too much, and not yet, at least.

"Come on," Daryl said, tugging her hand.

"Where are we going?" Carol asked, following along with him, still holding her hot chocolate in the hand he wasn't clasping, just the same as he was.

"You wanna meet that lil' boy tonight and that's what the hell we gonna do," Daryl said. "And you gonna bake cookies and shit with Sophia tomorrow. Fuck Jack Frost if he thinks he's gonna stop that shit from happenin'."

"You can't control the weather, Daryl," Carol offered. "No matter how mad you get."

"You right about that," Daryl said. "But I can drive a fuckin' car."

He dragged her to the car rental kiosk and ignored entirely her protests about the snow and the danger. He ignored, entirely, her declarations that it didn't matter and they could wait. He ignored, even, the tears that streamed down her cheeks when she lost the resolve to hold them back.

He paid for the one-way rental and got the address of the place closest to Sophia's house where he would drop the car.

Then he thumbed in a text message to their daughter, still holding tight to Carol's hand, that they were on their way. They would be a little late, because there had been a change in plans, but they were on their way.

They lost their hot chocolate, kept their carry-on bags, and Daryl dragged his protesting wife outside to the rental lot. He exchanged his ticket for some keys, popped the trunk on the car that they temporarily owned, and loaded their suitcases. The car was already equipped with snow chains and the tank was full.

And Daryl was feeling a lot younger than he had in decades.

"Daryl—we can't! It's dangerous." Carol pleaded. Her worries had now turned to something happening. Daryl caught her by the shoulders and held her.

"I love you," he said. "So, I need you to calm down and listen to me for just a minute. Can you do that for me? Call it a Christmas gift, even?"

Carol stopped protesting. She swallowed in rapid succession and nodded her head. Daryl smiled at her.

"I can drive this thing," he said. "And you gonna keep me company. We ain't no more'n two hours drivin' from Sophia's place. The plan ride was gonna be like soon as we took off, we'd damn near be landin'. We goin' to Sophia's—even if we gotta get there at ten miles an hour."

"Why?" Carol asked.

"Because I can't wait no longer to see that look on your face that you was wearin' from the time I showed you them tickets," Daryl said. "I want you to meet Branson. I want you to help Sophia have a good first Christmas. I want you to have every damn thing you wanted for Christmas. So, we're goin'."

Carol accepted his explanation and she answered him with a kiss before she ran for her side of the car. Normally Daryl would open the door for her in an attempt to be a gentleman, but she urged him to start the car instead.

The drive wasn't nearly as bad as he expected. The weather that was grounding the planes must have been much worse in the air than it was on the road. Daryl drove slowly, but he didn't have to drive dramatically slowly. Delays at every turn had turned their short trip to Sophia's into an excruciatingly long one. At this hour, most people were either off the road—likely stuck in airports—or they were already at their destinations. The road was practically abandoned as Daryl followed the GPS's instructions to get to their daughter's house.

Carol's Christmas spirit returned quickly and with a vengeance. Before long, they were singing about dashing through the snow at the top of their lungs and Carol was riding with her hand resting familiarly on Daryl's thigh. Nearly every time they passed a light that was bright enough to illuminate the interior of the car, Daryl stole a glance at Carol to see her smiling and her eyes shining.

She had gotten more beautiful every year that they'd been together.

Daryl told her that all the time, and she never believed him, but it was true.

He didn't tell her, either, that he immensely enjoyed the car ride together and was almost sad that it was over when they pulled into Sophia's driveway. Ryan met them at the car to gather their bags—carry-ons, only, because they'd pick up their suitcases whenever they decided to arrive at the airport—and Daryl followed Carol up the walk.

Inside the house, he kissed and hugged Sophia. He complimented her on the beauty of her home and her decorations. He accepted the coffee that Ryan made and he admired the brand-new baby boy that made him a grandfather.

And he admired the beauty of his wife in the glow of Christmas lights while she held her grandson and cooed over him, offering to take shifts up with him so that Sophia and Ryan could get a little sleep.

When they disappeared to take advantage of that kind of offer—the best kind of Christmas gift that anyone could really give brand new parents—Daryl settled down on the couch and cuddled in next to Carol while she nuzzled the baby.

"This was the best gift you could give me for Christmas," Carol breathed out to Daryl, leaning to give him a kiss that made it clear that she felt what she was saying.

"I'm happy to be here, too," he assured her.

"Your gift is in my suitcase," Carol said. "I don't even have anything for you."

Daryl laughed to himself. He cuddled a little closer to her and patted her arm. She snuggled into him and leaned her head against him.

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I got everything I want."


End file.
